The first reactions to Toy Story 5 are in, and they are exactly what you would expect. Critics are calling it “emotional, funny, genuinely warm, and perfect in every way”. One attendee described it as “a GENERATION-DEFINING experience and exactly the story we need right now”.
But before we go any further, a note on those quotes.
The Social Media Embargo: Hype, Not Journalism
The social media reactions to Toy Story 5 are not reviews. They are marketing. Studios have perfected this strategy: a handful of carefully selected critics and influencers are allowed to post short reactions a week or two before the full reviews. The trades publish them as news. The headlines write themselves.
But here is the truth about those reactions.
They are two parts hype. The occasion itself, a premiere, free food, free drinks, the stars walking the red carpet, creates an energy that has nothing to do with the film on screen.
They are two parts of relief. The film is not a disaster. The franchise is still alive. The embargo lifted. The tweets can now flow.
And they are one part of the actual film.
As all those in their 50s I grew up watching Toy Story films, saw the first time running it at 20th Century Fox preview theatre as relief projectionist in 1995, the second film watched it nervously from the projection room at Disney’s preview theatre in 1999, I was called in urgently to cover a screening as their projectionist had to leave, I was petrified running it as had never used their projectors before, it was a screening for senior mangement. So, the first two films have history with. The third and fourth films saw in regular cinemas as I will see the fifth.
Even terrible films like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice had positive immediate reactions. Critics walked out of that premiere and tweeted about how dark and bold and ambitious it was. Then the full reviews dropped. Then the audience saw it. And the film collapsed under the weight of its own hype.
Audiences will experience Toy Story 5 in a very different environment. Not a premiere. Not a red carpet. A multiplex on a Tuesday afternoon, surrounded by strangers, with a crying toddler two rows back and a rustling popcorn bag next to them. That is the real test.
One of those quotes “a GENERATION-DEFINING experience” first appeared after The Devil Wears Prada 2‘s social media embargo lifted. The same phrase. The same strategy. A different film.
So, take these reactions with a pinch of salt. The studios curate. The trades publish. The cycle repeats.
But even allowing for that, the question remains: is the film itself that good, or are critics responding to 30 years of accumulated nostalgia?
An AI Could Have Predicted Every Word
An AI — or anyone who has been paying attention for the last decade — could have predicted exactly what the first reactions to Toy Story 5 would say. Because the same phrases have been used so many times before for Disney and Pixar films.
| Predicted Phrase | Actual Phrase (from the embargo) |
| “Emotional and funny” | “Emotional, funny, genuinely warm” |
| “Perfect” | “Perfect in every way” |
| “Made me cry” | (Implied in every quote) |
| “Generational” | “A GENERATION-DEFINING experience” |
Disney knows exactly how to get audiences to respond like that. It has been part of their DNA for 100 years. The social media embargo. The curated quotes. The emotional beats. The nostalgia triggers. They are not guessing. They are executing a playbook they wrote decades ago.
And yet critics keep getting caught up in it. Every time. Like clockwork.
The critics are not fools. They are just human. And Disney knows exactly how to press their buttons.
The Skyfall Template: Critics Desperate to Be First
This pattern is not unique to Disney. It is the entire industry’s playbook. And it was obvious over a decade ago.
When Skyfall was released in 2012, the immediate social media reactions were hyperbolic and immediate. Newspaper critics “rushed to print”, and celebrities rushed to Twitter.
- Baz Bamigboye (Daily Mail) gave it five stars, calling it “pure classic 007 fare”.
- Kate Muir (The Times) tweeted that it was “a return to classic form”.
- Rhianna Dhillon (BBC Radio 1) tweeted: “WOW! You have a massive treat in store for you!”
- Graham Norton tweeted: “Skyfall is perfection!!!!!”
Why the rush? Critics wanted their five-star review to be the one the studio saw first. The one that gets quoted in the TV spot. The one that appears on the poster. The one that becomes part of the film’s marketing campaign.
The same thing is happening with Toy Story 5 now. The words change. The formula does not.
The Difference Between 1995 and 2026
In 1995, critics saw the original Toy Story in isolation. It was the only film. There was no franchise. No nostalgia. But they still had their lived experiences as children. They remembered their own toys. Their own attachments. Their own growing up. The film worked because it tapped into something universal, not because it was part of a series.
Now, 30 years later, those same critics have lived through the sequels. They have had children. Some have grandchildren. The Toy Story children, Andy, then Bonnie, have mirrored their own lives. They watched Andy go to college. They watched Bonnie grow up. They watched Woody struggle with obsolescence while they themselves navigated middle age.
The films have not just been stories. They have been milestones.
The Legacy Sequel at Heart
At the heart of it, Toy Story 5 is a legacy sequel, just like Top Gun: Maverick.
Maverick still saw himself as the hotshot pilot he was 35 years ago. The world had moved on. Drones were replacing pilots. But he could not let go of who he used to be.
Woody is the same. He still sees himself as the toy Andy loved 30 years ago. The toy that was the favourite. The toy that mattered. But Bonnie has grown up. Technology has moved on. The tablet is replacing the physical toy. And Woody is staring into the abyss of irrelevance, just like every parent who watches their children grow up and no longer need them.
That is why the critics are crying. They are not crying for Woody. They are crying for themselves.
The Pixar Paradox: Originality vs. Franchise
Pixar has been doing the same thing with all of their films: finding universal emotional truths wrapped in colourful animation. But it is the human stories that make the deepest connection with audiences.
Turning Red should have been one of those films. It has a very deep meaning for girls becoming women. The red panda is not just a curse. It is the messiness of becoming a woman, the emotions that are too big, the body that changes without permission, the rebellion against a mother who only wants to protect you. The film dared to show sanitary pads. It dared to use the word “sexy.” It dared to put periods and menstrual cramps on screen in a “children’s” film.
But Turning Red never got the credit it deserved. It never had a cinema release due to COVID. And for a film about the messiness of growing up, that loss is deeper than just box office numbers. The industry has never known what to do with a story about girls becoming women, so Disney sent the film to stream and hoped no one would notice.
Between 2020 and 2022, Pixar released three of its most original, unique films. Soul was a meditation on life, death, and purpose. Luca was a sun-drenched coming-of-age story about friendship and identity. Turning Red was a bold, unflinching look at girlhood, puberty, and mother-daughter relationships.
All three went straight to Disney+.
Disney cited the pandemic. Pixar’s chief creative officer Pete Docter later reflected that sending these films to stream “definitely kept them from becoming pop culture touchstones”. The Hollywood Reporter noted that “everyone is really bummed” at Pixar over the decision.
But then came Lightyear.
A $226 million Toy Story spinoff that no one asked for. A film with a confusing premise, not the toy Buzz, but the “human Buzz Lightyear that the toy is based on”. A film missing Tim Allen’s voice, missing Woody, missing everything that made the franchise beloved. A film that felt completely pointless.
And Lightyear got a full theatrical release.
The message was impossible to ignore: three original, risk-taking, culturally significant films — one of which, Turning Red, had very deep meaning for girls becoming women — were deemed unworthy of cinemas. But a cynical, expensive, unnecessary spinoff was given the red-carpet treatment.
Lightyear lost over $100 million. It became the weakest link in the Toy Story series. Pixar execs later admitted they “asked too much of the audience.” But the damage was done. The message had been sent.
Original stories are for streaming. Franchise extensions are for cinemas.
That is not a creative strategy. That is a business decision disguised as one.
It’s Not Just Disney: The Entire Industry Follows the Same Playbook
I am not just picking on Disney. It will be the same with The Odyssey, Dune: Part Three, Avengers: Doomsday, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day. We already know what the tweets will say. We already know how the films will perform at the box office. And yet both will be presented as a “surprise.”
| Film | The Tweets | The Box Office Headline | The Actual Truth |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Odyssey | “Breathtaking, ambitious, visually stunning” | “Nolan does it again — a surprise hit!” | Tracking had it at $80m+ for months |
| Dune: Part Three | “A sweeping, emotional, satisfying conclusion” | “Villeneuve’s masterpiece triumphs at box office” | Everyone knew the fans would show up |
| Avengers: Doomsday | “Marvel is back! Best since Endgame!” | “Record-breaking opening shocks Hollywood” | Marvel has been doing this for 15 years |
| Spider-Man: Brand New Day | “Fresh, exciting, emotional return to form” | “Spidey swings to surprise box office win” | Sony has been planning this for years |
Tracking data is now so precise that studios know exactly what a film will open to weeks in advance. The social media embargo is engineered to generate maximum hype. The trades are incentivised to publish the quotes as news. The critics compete to be quoted in the TV spot.
A surprise would be a film that came out of nowhere. A film that tracking missed. A film that had no pre-release hype. A film like Obsession, which was tracking at $15m and opened to $40m+.
That was a surprise. Avengers: Doomsday opening to $220m is not.
Infinity and Beyond
To quote Buzz Lightyear, the Toy Story films can go on to infinity and beyond. Not because Disney will keep making them, though they will, but because children will always be having these emotions. And their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents will always be living those emotions alongside them.
It is about connection.
There are 40 years between my niece and me. But thanks to her, I have a connection to Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift. We listen to the same music. We talk about the same songs. But we experience them differently. For her, it is now — her life, her friendships, her present. For me, it is something else. Memory. Reflection. A bridge to who I used to be.
It is the same with Toy Story. A child watching Toy Story 5 in 2026 will see a funny film about a tablet and some toys. A parent will see their own childhood reflected in them. A grandparent will see the cycle of life playing out on screen. The same film. Three different experiences. All of them valid.
The Terence Mann Speech: The DNA of Disney
There is a moment in Field of Dreams when Terence Mann, the reclusive author played by James Earl Jones, delivers a speech about why people will come to the baseball field in the cornfield. He is not talking about baseball. He is talking about nostalgia as a business model.
Listen to the words:
“They’ll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past.”
“Of course, we won’t mind if you look around,” you’ll say. “It’s only twenty dollars per person.” They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it. For it is money they have and peace they lack.
“And they’ll walk out to the bleachers, and sit in shirt-sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game, and it’ll be as if they’d dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.”
That speech was written in 1989. It is not about a baseball field in Iowa. It is about Disney World. It is about the cinema. It is about every cultural touchstone that sells us back our own memories.
For over 100 years, Disney has built this field. Not a baseball diamond, a theme park. A cinema screen. A streaming service. A merchandising pipeline. They have built a place where adults can feel like children again, and children can feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves.
“They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past.”
The past is not real. It is a feeling. And Disney sells that feeling back to us, twenty dollars at a time.
“They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it. For it is money they have and peace they lack.”
That is the transaction. Not a ticket. Not a subscription. A trade: money for peace. Cash for a moment of forgetting. A credit card swipe for the chance to sit in a dark room and cry at toys that never age.
“They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes.”
Those seats are not in a cinema. They are in our memories. Every time we watch a Toy Story film, we are not watching Woody and Buzz. We are watching ourselves at 10 years old, sitting on a living room floor, holding a toy we loved and then forgot.
“The memories will be so thick, they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.”
That is what the critics are doing in their Toy Story 5 reviews. Brushing memories away from their faces. Crying not because the film is perfect, but because the film is a mirror. And they are not ready to look away.
The Environment Is the Message: Pixie Dust Through the Air Conditioning
There is one more layer to this paradox. It is not just the nostalgia. It is not just the franchise. It is the screening environment itself.
Disney blows pixie dust through the cinema’s air conditioning. The free food. The free drinks. The red carpet. The crowd of screaming fans. The energy is electric. The tears are contagious. And critics, caught up in the hype, mistake the environment for the film.
Here is the proof.
Universal Pictures screened Kick-Ass for exhibitors in a standard screening room. The reaction was poor. Universal believed in the film, so they tried something different. They invited the same exhibitors again, this time, not to a screening room, but to the Empire Leicester Square. They filled the cinema with 1,200 comic book fans. The fans cheered. The fans laughed. The exhibitors experienced the film through the fans. The energy changed their perception. They all booked it. Kick-Ass became a hit in UK cinemas. Not because the film changed. Because the environment changed.
Warner Bros did the same thing with The Hangover. They held a multimedia screening. They gave critics free beer and wine before the film started. The audience was packed with people who were already in a good mood. The laughter was loud. The energy was high. Critics who might have dismissed a raunchy comedy as crude or offensive instead wrote about how “hilarious” and “unexpected” it was.
When I was a projectionist in a screening room about 20 years ago, I learned the secret: when a screening didn’t have free food and drinks before it, you always knew some critics would mark down their review. A well-fed, well-watered critic in a packed cinema with a buzzing crowd has a different experience than a hungry critic sitting alone in a sterile screening room.
This is also why Netflix films often get poor reviews compared to theatrical releases. Critics are watching them alone, on a laptop, at home, with distractions. There is no crowd. There is no energy. There is no shared experience. A mediocre action film watched in a packed cinema becomes a “thrilling ride.” The same film watched alone on a laptop becomes “forgettable.” The film did not change. The environment changed.
Now apply this to Toy Story 5.
The critics were not watching the film alone. They were at a premiere. Free food. Free drinks. Red carpet. Stars in attendance. A crowd of people who had been waiting months for this moment. The energy was electric. The tears were contagious.
Of course, they called it “a GENERATION-DEFINING experience.” That is what the environment made them feel.
The same critic, watching the same film on a Disney+ screener, alone in their living room, with no crowd, no energy, no free wine? They might have written a very different review.
But that critic was not invited to the premiere.
The Verdict
Toy Story 5 is not a bad film. It is likely a very good one. But the tears are not just for the story. They are for 30 years of life, lived alongside characters who never age, even as the audience does.
Woody still sees himself as the toy Andy loved. The critics still see themselves as the children who watched Toy Story in 1995.
The environment shaped the reaction. The free food, the red carpet, the screaming fans, Disney knows how to press every button. The critics are not corrupt. They are not stupid. They are just human.
And Disney has been engineering human emotion for 100 years.
Disney will keep building this field. They will keep making Toy Story sequels. They will keep charging twenty dollars (plus inflation). And we will keep showing up.
Not because the films are getting better. Because we are getting older.
Toy Story 5 is not a film. It is a reserved seat along a baseline we sat on 30 years ago. And as long as there are adults who remember being children, Disney will be there to sell them that memory back.
“It’s only twenty dollars per person.”
They will pass over the money without even thinking about it.
To infinity and beyond.